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Enabling Equitable Access to Essential Medicines

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Optimizing Treatment for Children in the Developing World

Abstract

Although safe and effective medication use is a cornerstone of optimal child healthcare, the use of medicines in the developing world remains suboptimal. Drug treatment must be improved through strict regulation and monitoring of pricing and drug quality. Better staff training is needed to overcome system limitations of distribution and storage, improve prescribing and dispensing, and to enhance detection and reporting of substandard and falsified medications. Numerous tools tailored for developing settings are now readily available. Emerging technologies such as mobile phones and other smart devices offer scope to overcome some of the challenges faced in resource-limited settings but their success will be largely contingent on trained health personnel, an engaged public, reliable infrastructure, and affordable communications. Actions at both a local and international level are required to realise the goal of rational prescribing and provision of essential medicines in all healthcare settings.

Essential medicines are intended to be available within the context of functioning health systems at all times, in adequate amounts, in the appropriate dosage forms, with assured quality, and at a price the individual and community can afford.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Clinical Pharmacology Unit, Department of General Medicine, Royal Children’s Hospital, Parville, VIC, 3052, Australia

    Amanda Gwee MBBS, DTMH

  2. Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, Parville, VIC, 3052, Australia

    Amanda Gwee MBBS, DTMH

  3. Centre for International Health, Burnet Institute, 85 Commercial Road, Melbourne, VIC, 3004, Australia

    Ben Coghlan MBBS, MPH

  4. Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC, 3004, Australia

    Ben Coghlan MBBS, MPH

  5. Clinical Pharmacology Unit, Department of Medicine, Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Noel E. Cranswick MBBS, LLB

  6. Department of Pediatrics, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Noel E. Cranswick MBBS, LLB

Authors
  1. Amanda Gwee MBBS, DTMH
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  2. Ben Coghlan MBBS, MPH
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  3. Noel E. Cranswick MBBS, LLB
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Amanda Gwee MBBS, DTMH .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pediatrics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

    Stuart MacLeod

  2. University of Melbourne Medical School, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Suzanne Hill

  3. Departments of Pediatrics and Pharmacology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Gideon Koren

  4. Department of Laboratory Medicine, Division of Clinical Pharmacology, Karolinska University, Hostpital Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden

    Anders Rane

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© 2015 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

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Gwee, A., Coghlan, B., Cranswick, N.E. (2015). Enabling Equitable Access to Essential Medicines. In: MacLeod, S., Hill, S., Koren, G., Rane, A. (eds) Optimizing Treatment for Children in the Developing World. Adis, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-15750-4_11

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-15750-4_11

  • Publisher Name: Adis, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-15749-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-15750-4

  • eBook Packages: MedicineMedicine (R0)

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